A video looking at parallels between student activism in the 1960s and activism now, through the lens of an interview with Alice Walker in which she talks about the importance of listening to students.This video explores the impact of listening to students in protest. Historian and professor Howard Zinn was active in United States social protests of the 1960s. His writing, speeches, and classroom helped inspired a generation of students to uncover and fight injustices in our society. Zinn’s activism and teaching encouraged students to realize their power and take action in the social movements. Zinn’s impact is clear not just through his fame as a people’s historian but also through the long list of his students who decided to speak truth and create change.
One of those students is writer and activist Alice Walker. A Zinn student at Spelman College, Walker claims that his ability to listen was his greatest quality in inspiring his students. This video builds on an interview with Walker in which she discusses Zinn’s impact on Spelman’s students and includes audio from a talk she gave welcoming Howard Zinn and Studs Terkel, another 1960s activist, to an event in California. Walker focuses on the power of listening, and recites a poem that she wrote for Zinn and Terkel.
The second part of this video bridges Zinn’s and Walker’s activism with twenty-first century student activism. Movements like Black Lives Matter and the March for Our Lives, led by young people, including high school and college students, are making waves and inspiring change around the world. This video highlights the importance of listening to and empowering these students as they demand their (and our) rights. Through music, marches, walkouts, and speeches, students are fighting for justice. We need to see them. We need to encourage them to become a “listener devoted to the sound of the human voice.”
Listening to Students: 1960s and Now
A video looking at parallels between student activism in the 1960s and activism now, through the lens of an interview with Alice Walker in which she talks about the importance of listening to students.
Transcript of the full interview with Alice Walker
Ari Bogom-Shanon
